Anderson v. Township of Santa Anna, In De Witt Illinois

• Decision Date: 04 January 1886
• Parties: ANDERSON, Ex'r, etc., v. TOWNSHIP OF SANTA ANNA, IN DE WITT Co., ILLINOIS. Filed
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

6 S.Ct. 413

116 U.S. 356

29 L.Ed. 633

ANDERSON, Ex'r, etc., v. TOWNSHIP OF SANTA ANNA, IN DE WITT Co., ILLINOIS.

Filed January 4, 1886.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action to recover from the township of Santa Anna, established under the general township organization laws of Illinois, the amount of certain negotiable bonds, with interest coupons attached, signed by its supervisor and clerk, and purporting to have been issued by it on the first day of October, 1867, 'under and by virtue of a law of the state of Illinois, entitled 'An act to amend the articles of association of the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington & Pekin Railroad Company, and to extend the powers of and confer a charter upon the same,' approved February 28, 1867, and in accordance with the vote of the electors of said township, at the special election held July 21, 1866, in accordance with said act.' Each bond also recites that the faith of the township is 'pledged for the payment of said principal sum and interest.' The circuit court sustained a demurrer to the declaration, and amended declaration, and gave judgment for the township.

The act of February 28, 1867, empowered the railroad company to locate and construct a railroad from Pekin, in Tazewell county, through, or as near as practicable, certain named towns to the eastern boundary of the state of Illinois. For the purpose of aiding in its construction, authority was given to incorporated towns or townships in counties acting under the township organ zation law, along the route of the road, to subscribe to the capital stock of the company in any sum not exceeding $250,000. By the thirteenth section of the act it is provided:

'Sec. 13. No such subscription shall be made until the question has been submitted to the legal voters of such incorporation, town, or township in which the subscription is proposed to be made; and the clerk of each of said towns or townships is hereby required, upon the presentation of a petition signed by at least ten citizens, who are legal voters and tax-payers of such town or township for which he is clerk, and in which petition the amount proposed to be subscribed shall be stated, to post up notices in at least three public places in each town or town- ship; which notice shall be posted not less than thirty days before the day of holding such election, notifying the legal voters of such town or township to meet at the usual place of holding elections in such town or township, or some other convenient place named in such notice, for the purpose of voting for or against such subscription: provided, that where elections may have already been held, and the majority of the legal voters of any township or incorporated town were in favor of a subscription to said railroad, then and in that case no other election need be had, and the amount so voted for shall be subscribed as in this act provided; and such elections are hereby declared to be legal and valid, as though this act had been in force at the time thereof and all the provisions hereof had been complied with.'

The pleadings allege that on the twenty-first of July, 1866, the township of Santa Anna, through which the road passed, 'held a special election upon the question of subscribing the sum of $50,000 to the capital stock of said Danville, Urbana, Bloomington & Pekin Railroad Company, at which said election a majority of the legal voters of said township voted for and were in favor of a subscription to the capital stock of said railroad company, by the said township,' of the said sum; that, on the first of October, 1867, in pursuance of said vote, and of said act of February 28, 1867, the then supervisor of the township subscribed, in its name, the sum of $50,000, receiving from the railroad company, for the township, proper certificates of stock, and, in connection with the township clerk, and in payment for such stock, executing and delivering to the company the bonds and coupons in suit; that the township, for nine consecutive years, regularly and annually assessed taxes to meet the interest on said bonds, and paid the same over without objection; that on the first day of December, 1868, the plaintiff purchased the bonds in suit at their par value from one Tiernan, to whom they had been sold by the company; that on the first Monday of Septemeber, 1869, and subsequently, the township, by its proper officers, participated as a stockholder in sundry meetings of the company's stockholders; that on the twenty-eighth of October, 1871, its then supervisor caused the bonds to be registered in the office of the auditor of public accounts of Illinois, who indorsed on each bond his certificate to the effect that it had been registered in his office pursuant to the act of April 16, 1869, to fund and provide for paying the railroad debts of counties, townships, cities, and towns; and that on the first day of July, 1874, the township exchanged this stock for a like amount of stock in another corporation, the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad Company, which latter stock, during the time the township has held and owned it, has been worth as much as 50 per cent, of its par value.

The record does not disclose the particular ground upon which the circuit court sustained the demurrer and gave judgment for the township; but we cannot understand how that result was possible, except upon the hypothesis that the act of February 28, 1867, legalizing elections previously held, at which a majority of the legal voters of a township declared in favor of a subscription to the stock of this company, was unconstitutional. But the constitutionality of that very statute, in respect of the clause now before us, was directly sustained by this court in St. Joseph Tp. v. Rogers, 16 Wall. 644, 663. The question there was as to the validity of bonds issued by a township on the first of October, 1867, to the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington and Pekin Railroad Company, under the authority of the before-mentioned act of February 28, 1867, and in accordance with a popular vote at an election held in August, 1866. It was there contended that the act was unconstitutional and void, as creating a debt for a municipality against its will expressed in a legal manner. There, as here, the election referred to in the bonds was held without authority of law. But the court, speaking by Mr. Justice CLIFFORD, said that, according to repeated decisions of the supreme court of Illinois and of this court, defective subscriptions of the kind there made 'may, in all cases, be ratified where the legislature could have originally conferred the power;' citing, among other cases, Cowgill v. Long, 15 Ill. 203, and Keithsburg v. Frick, 344 Ill. 405.

In Cowgill v. Long, 15 Ill. 202, it appears that a statute of Illinois authorized the legal voters of any school-district to meet together at a certain time in any year, and determine by vote whether a tax should be levied for the support of common schools, for building and repairing school-houses, or for other school purposes. The inhabitants of a district held an election and voted a tax for the purpose of erecting a school-house. The tax was assessed and steps were taken for its collection; but, as the election was not held at the time directed by the statute, certain tax-payers, whose property was levied on and was about to be sold, instituted a suit to enjoin the sale. Pending that suit the legislature passed an act declaring the vote and tax 'to be good, valid, and effectual in law and in equity,' and legalized what had been done by the local officers in reference to the assessment of the tax. The court held that although the tax was voted at a time not authorized by law, and was not so certified as to become a valid tax, 'it was clearly competent for the legislature to remedy those defects while the tax remained uncollected.' 'Laws of this character,' said Chief Justice TREAT, delivering the unanimous opinion of the court, 'are often passed to secure the collection of taxes defectively levied, and there can be no serious objections to their validity.'

In Keithsburg v. Frick, 34 Ill. 421, one the questions presented was as to the validity of an act of 1857, giving a special charter to the town of Keithsburg, and conferring upon it authority to subscribe stock to a certain railroad company, and at the same time legalizing and confirming a previous subscription to the stock of the same corporation by the town while acting under the general incorporation law for towns and cities. The court, speaking by Mr. Justice BREESE, said: 'If the subscription was made under the organization allowed by the general incorporation law of 1849, the seventeenth section of the act of 1857 legalizes and confirms it. The subscription, therefore, was good, if made under the act of 1857 as an original subscription under the second section, or as a subscription made under the act of 1849, confirmed as it is by the seventeenth section of the act of 1857. The bonds may be regarded as issued by the old corporation, confirmed by the new act, or as a new issue under the second section of the act of 1857.'

In Schofield v. Walkins, 22 Ill. 66, 73, one of the questions was as to the constitutionality of a statute which legalized the acts and proceedings of certain school-district trustees in uniting districts and levying and collecting taxes for building houses, and for the support of schools therein, and provided that all proceedings may be had in the same manner as if those proceedings had been strictly regular and legal. The court said, by WALKER, J., that there could be no doubt that 'the legislature have the power to form a school-district, or may legalize the acts of officers in attempting to form a district, so as to render such district legal; * * * and the power to cure irregularities in the manner...